PICS: Pakistan's only WAR-READY female fighter pilot

Every day, Ayesha Farooq, a 26-year-old woman, dons her olive green scarf to cover her hair and puts on a combat helmet to cover her hair -- for she is the first female war-ready fighter pilot in the all-male Pakistani air force.

This February, Ayesha, who hails from Punjab province's Bhawalpur, passed all the necessary tests to participate in combat missions -- she is the only one of the 19 women who have become pilots in the country's air force in the last decade.

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Ayesha looks up as she closes the cockpit of her Chinese-made F-7PG fighter jet at Mushaf base in Sargodha, north Pakistan.

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Ayesha performs a pre-flight check on her Chinese-made F-7PG fighter jet at Mushaf base in Sargodha, north Pakistan.

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Ayesha walks with Wing Commander of Squadron 20 Nasim Abbas (second from right) and her colleagues toward a Chinese-made F-7PG fighter jet at Mushaf base in Sargodha, north Pakistan June.

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Ayesha chats with her colleagues beside a Chinese-made F-7PG fighter jet at Mushaf base in Sargodha, north Pakistan.

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Ayesha talks with avionics engineer Anam Hassan, 24, at Mushaf base in Sargodha, north Pakistan.

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Ayesha attends a briefing with colleagues at Mushaf base in Sargodha, north Pakistan.

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Ayesha smiles during an interview at Mushaf base in Sargodha, north Pakistan. As attitude towards women has changed in the war-torn country, more and more of them have joined Pakistan's defence forces.

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